Railway-gate-operating device



June 9, 1925.

A. PETERSON RAILWAY GATE OPERATING DEVICE Filed April 19, 1924 QZWMK Patented June 9, 1925.

ANDREW PETERSON, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

nnxLwAY-enrn-ornasrme DEVICE.

Application filed April 19, 1924. Serial No. 707,711.

- To all whom it may concern:

open railway Be it known that 1, ANDREW PETERSON, a citizen'ofthe United States of America, residing at Brooklyn, in thecounty of Kings and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Railway-Gate-Operating Devices, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to an apparatus and 1 method for the automatic closing and opening of swinging gates at a railway crossing.

My invention has for its object to utilize the wheel load as well as the radial speed difference between the outer and inner rim of a car wheel for the automatic operation of the swinging gates.

It hasalso for an Ob cct to furnish a series of mechanically operated and coacting levers which levers are spaced apart a distance'lessthan the length of the train.

It has for a further ob'ect to provide a resilient intermediate member in said series of levers, so that the wheel action on the first lever which of necessity is very rapid will cause said resilient member to store up the energy and to gradually apply said energy upon the other levers thus causing the gates to close more gradually. Still another object of my invention is to provide a hogged member to be placed in the path of the outer wheel rims and sufliciently long so as to at all times engage a wheel rim during the passage of the train, said ho-gged member being counter-weighted in such a manner that when flattened out by the car wheels it gradually recovers its hogged state after the passing of the train.

In the drawing Figure 1 shows thegeneral arrangement of my device.

Figure 2 shows a fractional view of the gate with the first car of a train about to engage the first of a series of operating levers.

Figure 3 shows a fractional view of the closed railway gate with a car train engaging the whole series of operating levers.

Figures 2 and 3 are shown shortened on an enlarged scale.

Referring to the drawing in which like reference characters designate corresponding parts, .1 .represents the car train which moves along the rails 2.

At certain points and side of the rail 2 so as close enough to the to be directly below at the center and a rod 6' is so attached to ,the hmged center of said members as to turn the levers 7 and 7 around a fixed center. p

The two levers 7 shown in the drawing are connected to each other by means of a tension member 8 which tension member is supplied with a tension spring 9.

The lever 7closest to the-gates 10 rotates a shaft to which another lever 11 is rigidly attached. One end of rod 12 is attached to the lever 11 and the other is attached to the swing arm 13 which rotates the shaft 14 and also operates the rod 15.

' The gates 10 are pivoted around the supports '16 and the two gates are made meeting by means of levers 17 and connecting rod 18 and other duplicate parts as shown.

A proper counterweight 19 is furnished at the end of a lever which is rigidly attached to the main operating shaft 20.

The double hinged members 5 are hinged at one end to the fixed hinges 21, the other end being free to slide when the wheel rims flatten the hog out of the double members 5.

The operation of the device is as follows.

' The train 1 approaches the double hogged members 5 andthe outer rims of the car wheels 4 engage said members and cause them to flatten out as shown in Figure 3.

It is to be noted that the inner rims of the carwheels 4 engage the rail 2 and roll on said rails with a velocity equal to the speed of thetrain.

The outer rims of the car wheels possess a radial velocity greater than the speed of the train andanything which engages with the .7

lower part of the outer rims when the train is in motion will be pulled backwards with a velocity equal to the difference between the outer and inner rim velocity.

spring will thereafter gradually contract and in doing so cause the swinging gates to be lowered at a moderate speed.

It is to be noted that automatic alarms can readily be operated in conjunction with the gates.

The levers 7 and are spaced a distance apart somewhat smaller than the train length so that a part of the train will at all times engage one of the series of levers when passing said series.

\Vhen the last part of the train has passed the series of levers, the counterweight 19 will gradually swing down and in so doing will open the gates 10 and hog the hinged members 5 as shown in Fig. 2.- I

I do not desire to be understood as limitingmyself to the specific details of construction and arrangement as herein described and illustrated, as it is manifest that variations and modifications may be made in the adaptations of the device to various conditions, Without departing from the spirit and scope of my invention.

I claim An automatic railway gate operating device having a series of pivoting levers said series of levers being coacting and so spaced that a train in passing will substantially at all times engage one of said levers.

ANDREW PETERSON. -Witnesses GUNNAR C. ENGSTTAND, CHAS. A. G. ARMSTRONG. 

